Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 4

Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 4

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LongQ

13,864 posts

234 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
Some "quality" journalism from Gizmodo:

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/a-brain-invadin...


I'm not really sure that it deserves a place anywhere but assuming it does it seems light on science so may be a better fit here in Politics.

Presumably there may be some serious concerns underpinning the source of the story. However it's difficult to tell from the story as written.


turbobloke

103,986 posts

261 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
We;d need to eliminate the possibility that the authorship has been affected by their subject matter, it's quite possible they no longer understand causality (an affliction shared by many a warmist).

wc98

10,416 posts

141 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
LongQ said:
Some "quality" journalism from Gizmodo:

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/a-brain-invadin...


I'm not really sure that it deserves a place anywhere but assuming it does it seems light on science so may be a better fit here in Politics.

Presumably there may be some serious concerns underpinning the source of the story. However it's difficult to tell from the story as written.
i think the last line of the piece definitely qualifies it for the political debate.

LongQ

13,864 posts

234 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
wc98 said:
i think the last line of the piece definitely qualifies it for the political debate.
It seems so.

The problem, as I see it, is that stuff like this - opinion that seems to be very loosely based on anything when you consider it carefully - is landing in the "popular" areas of media "news" and will remain there in Google searches for an unpredictable period being taken in as "fact" which it clearly is not as presented.

Consider this:

"The severity of the disease can vary wildly, there's no known treatment, and it's notoriously difficult to diagnose.

Cases of rat lungworm infections have been documented in over 30 countries and health officials are worried about its appearance in areas where previously the habitat was believed to be unsuitable. One recent surprise location was in Oklahoma. Scientists fear that this is just another consequence of climate change".

Read more at https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/a-brain-invadin...


So it's a disease that is difficult to spot and diagnose accurately and is not something that medics would expect to discover in many parts of the world (i.e. the USA) if they have never considered the likelihood that it might exist in their location.

What would it take for this difficult diagnosis to appear, suddenly, over a much wider area than previously identified?

Climate change?

Or someone with a specific interest - perhaps even expertise - in the infection process and disease development becoming more widely involved in the identification and treatment regimes associated with it?

Add in the wider aspects of travel and trade - import and export activity being a far more likely vector for pest and disease transmission (rats have been actively blamed for centuries) and compare that with some marginal projected climate changes (of whatever cause - it does not matter here) and one can undoubtedly pin the "blame" on humans but not for the reasons implied in the article.

That's where the insidious political spin comes in.

Controlling disease is not a directly taxable activity. But using the fear of disease as a justification for collecting wealth to pay for "protection" research is a huge growth industry into which humans will buy. This is the same kind of fear that will see nominally free people voting, via a referendum, to become subordinate to a dictatorship.

Maybe controlling dictatorships are what the younger members of the human community have come to feel most comfortable with in their everyday lives?

There must be an entire research thesis to be written in that subject if someone can work out where the funding can be found.

turbobloke

103,986 posts

261 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
LongQ said:
There must be an entire research thesis to be written in that subject if someone can work out where the funding can be found.
All the research team proposal has to do is include the words 'global warming' or 'climate change' in their submission and they'll need a big metaphorical wheelbarrow for the incoming funding.

wc98

10,416 posts

141 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
LongQ said:
It seems so.

The problem, as I see it, is that stuff like this - opinion that seems to be very loosely based on anything when you consider it carefully - is landing in the "popular" areas of media "news" and will remain there in Google searches for an unpredictable period being taken in as "fact" which it clearly is not as presented.

Consider this:

"The severity of the disease can vary wildly, there's no known treatment, and it's notoriously difficult to diagnose.

Cases of rat lungworm infections have been documented in over 30 countries and health officials are worried about its appearance in areas where previously the habitat was believed to be unsuitable. One recent surprise location was in Oklahoma. Scientists fear that this is just another consequence of climate change".

Read more at https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/a-brain-invadin...


So it's a disease that is difficult to spot and diagnose accurately and is not something that medics would expect to discover in many parts of the world (i.e. the USA) if they have never considered the likelihood that it might exist in their location.

What would it take for this difficult diagnosis to appear, suddenly, over a much wider area than previously identified?

Climate change?

Or someone with a specific interest - perhaps even expertise - in the infection process and disease development becoming more widely involved in the identification and treatment regimes associated with it?

Add in the wider aspects of travel and trade - import and export activity being a far more likely vector for pest and disease transmission (rats have been actively blamed for centuries) and compare that with some marginal projected climate changes (of whatever cause - it does not matter here) and one can undoubtedly pin the "blame" on humans but not for the reasons implied in the article.

That's where the insidious political spin comes in.

Controlling disease is not a directly taxable activity. But using the fear of disease as a justification for collecting wealth to pay for "protection" research is a huge growth industry into which humans will buy. This is the same kind of fear that will see nominally free people voting, via a referendum, to become subordinate to a dictatorship.

Maybe controlling dictatorships are what the younger members of the human community have come to feel most comfortable with in their everyday lives?

There must be an entire research thesis to be written in that subject if someone can work out where the funding can be found.
there are literally hundreds of scenarios out there just like this .the beauty of mmgw theory is there appear to be no bounds on what it can do.
the big problem for me is , like all areas of the soft sciences and many of the traditional sciences these days, no one ever bothers attempting to refute anything, even in instances where conclusions in papers are demonstrably wrong. publishing, even if what is being published is crap, is what pays the bills.

the sheer amount of dross from the constant churn gives daily opportunity for those seeking to spin the mundane into scare stories and there does appear to be a demographic lapping them up.hard to blame them when they have had the "we are all doomed" message drummed into them from they day they enter state education (i don't know what the position is in private education establishments) until the day they leave.

LongQ

13,864 posts

234 months

Monday 17th April 2017
quotequote all
wc98 said:
LongQ said:
It seems so.

The problem, as I see it, is that stuff like this - opinion that seems to be very loosely based on anything when you consider it carefully - is landing in the "popular" areas of media "news" and will remain there in Google searches for an unpredictable period being taken in as "fact" which it clearly is not as presented.

Consider this:

"The severity of the disease can vary wildly, there's no known treatment, and it's notoriously difficult to diagnose.

Cases of rat lungworm infections have been documented in over 30 countries and health officials are worried about its appearance in areas where previously the habitat was believed to be unsuitable. One recent surprise location was in Oklahoma. Scientists fear that this is just another consequence of climate change".

Read more at https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/04/a-brain-invadin...


So it's a disease that is difficult to spot and diagnose accurately and is not something that medics would expect to discover in many parts of the world (i.e. the USA) if they have never considered the likelihood that it might exist in their location.

What would it take for this difficult diagnosis to appear, suddenly, over a much wider area than previously identified?

Climate change?

Or someone with a specific interest - perhaps even expertise - in the infection process and disease development becoming more widely involved in the identification and treatment regimes associated with it?

Add in the wider aspects of travel and trade - import and export activity being a far more likely vector for pest and disease transmission (rats have been actively blamed for centuries) and compare that with some marginal projected climate changes (of whatever cause - it does not matter here) and one can undoubtedly pin the "blame" on humans but not for the reasons implied in the article.

That's where the insidious political spin comes in.

Controlling disease is not a directly taxable activity. But using the fear of disease as a justification for collecting wealth to pay for "protection" research is a huge growth industry into which humans will buy. This is the same kind of fear that will see nominally free people voting, via a referendum, to become subordinate to a dictatorship.

Maybe controlling dictatorships are what the younger members of the human community have come to feel most comfortable with in their everyday lives?

There must be an entire research thesis to be written in that subject if someone can work out where the funding can be found.
there are literally hundreds of scenarios out there just like this .the beauty of mmgw theory is there appear to be no bounds on what it can do.
the big problem for me is , like all areas of the soft sciences and many of the traditional sciences these days, no one ever bothers attempting to refute anything, even in instances where conclusions in papers are demonstrably wrong. publishing, even if what is being published is crap, is what pays the bills.

the sheer amount of dross from the constant churn gives daily opportunity for those seeking to spin the mundane into scare stories and there does appear to be a demographic lapping them up.hard to blame them when they have had the "we are all doomed" message drummed into them from they day they enter state education (i don't know what the position is in private education establishments) until the day they leave.
I went searching for information that was not emanating from Hawaii.

I found this

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/nematode/rat_l...

from the University of Florida.

First published in 2013 and last updated November 2016.

So not exactly out of date one must assume.

The word "climate" does not appear once in the text.

There are, however, a number of rather salient points about human influences that are likely to spread disease risk factors via trade or the importation and introduction of species to places where they have not previously been indigenous.

And then there are people who see their lives as being for travelling and risk taking - so much easier to do now for so many more people that ever it was before. Such people are quite likely to be tempted to try activities and, in this case, food stuffs, that might not be adequately prepared to avoid the risk of any number of "infections" by parasitic means - some of which can be especially troublesome if encountered in quantity but hardly bother anyone in more typical low level infestations.

This, surely, is hardly new information?

So why is Hawaii trying to kill its tourism industry on the basis of a sudden burst of apparent infections?

Is it simply because a couple of newlyweds seem to have been infected and they are from San Franscisco, thus making the news "big" on the mainland?

Is that enough for reports around the world that an Climate Change induced epidemic is about to envelope all of us?

If so we may well have a big problem with Climate Change but it has nothing at all to do with any changes to climate.

robinessex

11,062 posts

182 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
Todays Beeb CC puff story :-

Slims River: Climate change causes "river piracy" in Canada's Yukon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39634290

"A team of scientists say a melting glacier in Canada's Yukon has caused a river to completely change course.
Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, show how climate change can cause surprising geological events."

Where's the proof then ?

turbobloke

103,986 posts

261 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
Blimey. River changes course from glacier melt which has no causality to humans.

Oxbow Lakes will be outlawed by the IPCC at this rate and removed from school geography text books (or a baseless tax gas attribution will be added).

Hopefully all rivers will read IPCC reports in future.

silly

LongQ

13,864 posts

234 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
Worse still it seems there is no evidence that the river was wearing a Hi-Viz jacket when it undertook this work.

I think there should be a judicial enquiry to uncover why that was the case.

(For the avoidance of doubt - yes I am being ridiculous but at least I am prepared to admit it. And it's deliberate.)

durbster

10,282 posts

223 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
robinessex said:
"A team of scientists say a melting glacier in Canada's Yukon has caused a river to completely change course.
Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, show how climate change can cause surprising geological events."

Where's the proof then ?
robinessex said:
...Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience...

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

245 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
durbster said:
robinessex said:
"A team of scientists say a melting glacier in Canada's Yukon has caused a river to completely change course.
Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, show how climate change can cause surprising geological events."

Where's the proof then ?
robinessex said:
...Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience...
Could have been published in Woman's Weekly; that potential fact would have been no more or less compelling.

dickymint

24,379 posts

259 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
Meanwhile back to politics - I've entered all the available data into MY model and have concluded that the up coming general election will be the death of the Green party wink

wc98

10,416 posts

141 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Meanwhile, my Bet is looking good.

Dong has won projects with their subsidy free bids for Offshore Wind project. i.e. Market Rate.
what bet ?

Gandahar

9,600 posts

129 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
robinessex said:
Todays Beeb CC puff story :-

Slims River: Climate change causes "river piracy" in Canada's Yukon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39634290

"A team of scientists say a melting glacier in Canada's Yukon has caused a river to completely change course.
Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, show how climate change can cause surprising geological events."

Where's the proof then ?
The proofs in the actual original scientific paper

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/...

Seems like your's is just a puff lazy link followed up by more puff narrow minded postulations from the usual suspects on here? wink

I bet you are not going to get your $32 out to read it all any time soon..... the BBC whipping boys are free of course. Why do you read them if so bad?



Edited by Gandahar on Wednesday 19th April 00:04

Gandahar

9,600 posts

129 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
LongQ said:
Worse still it seems there is no evidence that the river was wearing a Hi-Viz jacket when it undertook this work.
I am starting to think you should change your name from LongQ to ShortIQ having read a few posts on here from you.

Gandahar

9,600 posts

129 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
Meanwhile Scott of the Antarctic, sorry, EPA, looking like he's going to show his teeth

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/pruitt-water...

Not quite as exciting as global AGW but even so the clean water battleground now may show how adapt the Trump team will be later with bigger fish to fry ( pardon the pun)

Well worth watching.


powerstroke

10,283 posts

161 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Wow

The gold fishes memories were even less than I expected.

You know : The Bet I offered, having corrected you all in your facts of Offshore Wind
The pages where all the boys in the biscuit club were barracking about the offshore wind subsidy, but then stfu when it was time to put a cock on the block and stand behind their glibbish ignorance for the sake of a few quid.

Those bets.


Hang on - your username seems famailiar..... weren't you down for a tickle?
Can we have this in English please???

robinessex

11,062 posts

182 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
Gandahar said:
robinessex said:
Todays Beeb CC puff story :-

Slims River: Climate change causes "river piracy" in Canada's Yukon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39634290

"A team of scientists say a melting glacier in Canada's Yukon has caused a river to completely change course.
Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, show how climate change can cause surprising geological events."

Where's the proof then ?
The proofs in the actual original scientific paper

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/...

Seems like your's is just a puff lazy link followed up by more puff narrow minded postulations from the usual suspects on here? wink

I bet you are not going to get your $32 out to read it all any time soon..... the BBC whipping boys are free of course. Why do you read them if so bad?



Edited by Gandahar on Wednesday 19th April 00:04
You've missed the point. 99.99999999999999999 % of the population will read the BBC report. Not Nature Geoscience. And I like the word CAN in this extract, "climate change can cause surprising geological events.". In CC and AGW language, that's a definite, isn't it? How do you assign CC to surprising geological events then?

London424

12,829 posts

176 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
quotequote all
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Meanwhile, my Bet is looking good.

Dong has won projects with their subsidy free bids for Offshore Wind project. i.e. Market Rate.
That won't be built until 2024.
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